


To Hold On

by cgf_kat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Langst, Torture, Violence, Whump, Whumptober 2018, platonic klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 15:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16287119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: Keith comes closer to the bars and lowers his voice, even though his eyes still won't quite meet Lance's. "We're gonna be all right, Lance. We just have to hold on until we figure a way out of here ourselves, or until the others find us. And they will.""I know that. But where ARE we?" Lance whispers urgently."I'm sorry, Lance, it's...if I'm right, I think it’s...kind of like a brothel. But not for sex.” Keith shifts on his feet, uncomfortable. “Just for people who want to hurt people."





	1. Chapter 1

Lance has become fast, close friends with the cold metal floor.

The cool surface beneath him is the only respite he has now. It’s only been...how long? Three rest periods...he hopes to quiznak they’re coming up on another...almost four vargas then? If he understands the system right? But it feels like an eternity already.

He’s given up on trying to stay upright. Trying to...anything, really. With his bound wrists chained to the floor it’s easier just to be on the ground anyway. Not that he’s really thought it through. He hasn’t had time to, but he hasn’t tried to get back up in a while, either.

His friend the floor cools his stomach as the sting of a whip bites into his back again. His grunt is muffled against his arm. He doesn’t have the energy to really protest anymore.

He spent the first couple of vargas or so doing that.

***

_Eight Vargas Ago_

Their processing was unceremonious - stripping them of their clothes and tossing drab grayish pants and sleeveless shirts at them. Baggy things that hung from them.

Of course it had to happen now. When they were trying to get back to Earth. They'd been stopped on a planet for supplies, just minding their own business. But wasn't that always the way? Their luck hadn't been the greatest out here - not after being shrunk, kidnapped by pirates that just happened to be old enemies, and grabbed by some weird space god, among other other things - so maybe Lance shouldn't have been surprised when he and Keith were jumped.

They both fought. Of course they did. But whoever jumped them hit them with some kind of low-yield gas that knocked them out before they could fight back TOO much. Lance remembers the cobblestone alleyway rising up to meet him, reaching out to Keith who was falling...then nothing.

They woke up here, in this dark damp place, with some large part-Galra, threatening-looking thugs kicking them awake in a nondescript cell they were promptly dragged from. They don't know how far they are from where they were, or if they're even on the same planet.

They're shoved now into smaller cells in a long corridor, beside each other but not together, though the cells share a barred wall. All of the cells share sidewalls, the fronts of the cells along the corridor are bars as well, and for some reason, the back walls are solid metal, each with another door.

Their neighbors barely spare them a glance as the cell doors clang shut behind them, and the clearly carefully controlled look on Keith's face as he takes in their surroundings is not helping Lance's nerves at all. Neither are the faint sounds of screaming and crying and just...distress...that seem to be coming from everywhere even though it isn't coming from anywhere he can see.

"Where the quiznak are we?" Lance whispers, shivering as he sidles up close to the shared bars. He tugs at the strange cuffs around his wrists. They aren't connected to each other, just rings around his arms, and they seem to have some kind of technology embedded into them; they definitely seem high-tech somehow, but he couldn't say how or why, or why they aren't holding his wrists together at the moment.

No answer.

"Keith? Earth to Keith."

***

_Now_

The back walls - the doors - lead here. Another long hallway on the other side of the solid metal. Another hallway of cells with shared bars between them. But the cells on this side of the wall are equipped with more than a hole for a toilet and a thin sleeping pallet.

A lot more.

Lance cries out as a booted foot catches one of his hands against the floor and grinds down on the broken bones of his fingers.

Those have been broken since varga one; he’s afraid to look at them anymore. He doesn’t even as he shift quickly to curl around them when the foot disappears again. On his side it’s a little easier to breathe anyway. He gulps in air greedily, trying to stave off tears he doesn’t want his tormentor to see.

“What, not having fun anymore?” A quiet hum, the nudge of the toe of a boot against his head. Lance flinches, but the next blow doesn’t come. “Hmm. Maybe I can let you off a little early this time. We’re about to have another break anyway.”

Rest periods. About ten or fifteen doboshes of every varga, from what Lance can tell since this started almost four vargas ago. For most of the cells down the line, it means a change of tormentor. Of client.

But during the first change Smirk Face just ruffled his hair and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere; we’re just getting to know each other. I bought your whole six-varga shift.”

***

_Eight Vargas Ago_

Keith makes a face and won't really look at him.

Lance swallows. "You know what this place is, don't you...?"

Why were they grabbed? It definitely didn't seem like being arrested, and if these people have any idea who they are, they haven't said anything about it. So it doesn't seem to matter that they're Paladins of Voltron.

What then? What's the point? Who are the people in these cells and why are THEY here?

"Keith, what is it?" A particularly piercing scream comes from nowhere, or...maybe above them? Another floor? Lance flinches, and the looks the people in the other cells are giving them...

Pity? Mirth? Indifference? Amusement? An array he doesn't want to think about, and Keith's reluctance to talk to him is only making the sudden ache in his stomach worse.

"I think I've heard about these places," Keith says finally. "In the Blades...we hear things...they've tried to shut these places down more than once, but they keep coming back."

"What are you talking about?"

Keith comes closer to the bars and lowers his voice, even though his eyes still won't quite meet Lance's. "We're gonna be all right, Lance. We just have to hold on until we figure a way out of here ourselves, or until the others find us. And they will."

"I know that. But where ARE we?" Lance whispers urgently.

"I'm sorry, Lance, it's...if I'm right, I think it’s...kind of like a brothel. But not for sex.” Keith shifts on his feet, uncomfortable. “Just for people who want to hurt people."

***

_Now_

Smirk Face retreats to a stool in the corner of the cell; he disappears from sight and Lance doesn’t have to see to know that’s where he went. It’s where he always goes during the mandatory breaks. He just sits there with that stupid grin on his face.

At least this time Lance doesn’t have to stare at it. He’s facing the other direction, though he isn’t sure that’s much better.

He grimaces as Keith’s shouts cut into his ears—as his tired eyes focus on the cell he’s facing. Keith, hung from the ceiling with arms forced wide and his feet barely touching the floor. Some part-Galra hooligan is jabbing something like a cattle-prod into his ribs.

Lance has gathered from trying to look around in the middle of this that their cuffs will snap to anywhere on the bars of the cell and any number of ports in the ceilings and floors, some with chains that can be extended to varying lengths. When they’re in the back the cuffs were nothing but bracelets, but out here they activate. Snap either together or to something else. Wherever the clients want, and they control the remote for the wrist devices.

The clients all seem to have their preferences. So far Smirk Face’s has been this short leash to the floor.

The long, piercing tone to signal the end of the session echoes through the cells, and the thug in Keith’s cell tosses the electricized prod aside with a sigh. Keith slumps, unconscious, and Lance swallows.

Or...no. Wait a tick.

Keith isn’t out. Lance’s stomach jumps into his throat as he watches the client turn away too soon—too close to Keith. Keith’s eyes snap open as his legs shoot up, practically climbing the guy in an instant before wrapping around his throat.

Or that looks like it was the plan, anyway. Get him in a chokehold and demand to be released? Get his remote? Get both of them out of here?

It doesn’t work. Keith doesn’t get a tight enough grip before the guy breaks loose enough to spin on him, and where the quiznak did the knife come from? Lance’s mouth is opening when he sees it, his raw throat already aching even before he can shout.

“Keith!”

It doesn’t change anything. Of course it doesn’t. Keith’s movement is limited. He has no defense against the blade sinking into his stomach.

Or against the second, angrier blow.  
“Keith!”

The client steps back with a satisfied grin on his face even Smirk-Face would probably be proud of, wiping the bloody knife on his pants as Keith jerks against the chains, gasping and wide-eyed.

“Keith!”

***

_Eight Vargas Ago_

“For...what?” Lance feels suddenly faint. He reaches for the bars between them to steady himself. “That’s...you’re joking, right? Please tell me that’s some really awful Blade humor.”

Keith finally, really looks at him. “I really wish it was.”

He’s seen regret on Keith’s face before—so many times—but it’s never chilled him the way this does. “Oh…”

Lance can feel his knees giving out, and he lowers himself slowly to the floor before he can fall. Keith follows him down. “Lance…?”

He swallows around a suddenly dry mouth. “I-I…” He has to shake his head and take a deep breath or two to stave off dizziness. “How um...how b—how bad is this going to get?” he asks quietly. His fingers convulse around the bars. On the other side of them, Keith winces.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh my god, would you newbies shut up? Some of us want to sleep!”

The voice comes from behind him. Lance glances over his shoulder at the green woman in the next cell glaring up at both of them from her pallet.

“And to answer your question, this particular facility,” she spits, “has Boxes, so they can do whatever the hell they want to you.”

Lance twists back to Keith, his eyebrows climbing. “What?”

That look again. The one that says he’s sorry. “Like the healing pods, but more crude. They force healing too fast, or don’t work as well or something. Not sure. Never seen them. Just...heard things.”

“Shut UP!” the woman shouts again.

Around them, more voices shout, almost more at her than at them—a chorus of exhausted anger that only lasts a moment before everyone goes quiet again. As it dies away Lance lets his forehead drift against the bars between his hands, closing his eyes against the dizziness that’s threatening him again.

Keith doesn’t say anything else, but after a moment Lance hears him shift, hears the quiet rustle of fabric and skin brushing metal, and two hands rest gently on his shoulders and stay there.

***

_Now_

No no no no...

The cell door opens when all of the others do—to let the client out because the session has ended—and the guards outside don’t bat an eye at the state of the prisoner as they take the remote back from the man leaving. As the cuffs on Keith’s wrists start to flash and whine that his condition is critical one of them presses a button and lets him fall unceremoniously to the ground.

Lance calls his name again, over and over, trying to get his attention, anything.

Keith is coughing, doubled over on his side, trying to stem the blood flow out of instinct as the guards press another button. A coffin-shaped metal box rises from under the floor behind him.

Lance knows what it is. He’s seen it used between sessions in other cells down the line. He knows the Box will save Keith, but his heart won’t stop pounding. It seems like Keith can’t get enough air now, and neither can he.

“Keith…!”

It comes out like a sob this time, and he doesn’t care anymore. He’s so tired. Everything hurts and he’s been listening to himself and one of his friends scream for hours, and why can’t this just be over…?

Smirk Face is still behind him, probably just doing his thing. He’s probably enjoying this. Lance doesn’t care about that anymore, either. Not when Keith finally meets his eyes, and it seems to do some good.

Keith is coughing blood onto the floor, but somehow he seems to relax. Maybe just because Lance is...there. Something tight in Lance’s gut uncoils, too, even if just for a moment.

In a few minutes, Keith will come out of that box mostly healed, and someone else will hurt him. In a few minutes Smirk Face will come out of his corner, and Lance doesn’t know what he has planned next.

But at least they’re not in this alone. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter 2 because today (the 14th) is the actual 'torture' prompt day for Whumptober and today is almost over, haha. So anyway, more bonding and such coming next time, but for now have some mostly Keith POV since we started off with Lance.

Being healed too quickly would have been bad enough, but the Box the guards drop Keith into doesn’t even even bother to sedate him.

It relatively immobilizes him so it can work, sure, but it doesn’t put him under. And that’s...worse.

It hurts.

A lot.

The pain is almost immediate as the lid of the box closes over him, every nerve ending seemingly on fire as his body goes still, paralyzed. At least he’s able to close his eyes;  
he isn’t about to WATCH his stomach being knitted back together.

He can feel it happening, anyway. That’s exactly why he’s screaming.

Keith doesn’t know how long it lasts. His senses white out. He isn’t sure if he actually loses consciousness, but the next thing he’s aware of is being yanked up and out of the Box again.

Everything aches, but when he glances down, the stab wounds are nearly gone. All that’s left are faint spots of puckered skin, like old scars. Any smaller cuts and bruises have disappeared entirely.

The guards shove him back into the bars of the wall between his cell and Lance’s; his cuffs snap to the bars and leave him stuck there and no no no, why this wall? Why not the other one? Or the middle of the room where he was before? Anywhere other than here?

He can’t see Lance this way. He can’t be there if Lance needs him. There isn’t much he can do - the failed escape attempt proved that; not that he plans to give up - but still...

...and he can’t see Lance if HE needs him.

The moments between the client stabbing him and waking up in the box are fuzzy, but other than the pain all he remembers is Lance. Calling his name. Catching his eyes.

Knowing he wasn’t alone.

That awful tone sounds through the cell block, and the doors open again. The guards hand off the cuff remote to a new client and behind him that awful, grinning degenerate that’s been going at Lance since the beginning will be coming out of his stupid corner and Keith can’t do anything about it. He pulls against the cuffs, but it does no good and he can’t even SEE Lance...

He doesn’t spare much attention for the new client in his own cell, but he does snort when the Galran woman picks up the prod the last man discarded.

“Really? No original ideas? Do I have ‘please electrocute me’ written across my forehead or something?”

Behind him Lance is whimpering and groaning for some reason and Keith tries again to twist enough to see over his shoulder, but he can’t. A large hand grabs his face and forces him to look forward again. He resists the urge to wince as the tips of her claws sink in around his jaw.

“You might as well.”

She cuts his shirt off first, though, because it’s covered in blood and useless now anyway. Keith doesn’t really mind that. What he does mind is when she runs a thumb over the new scars. He shivers.

“Hmm, look at that.”

Keith knows it’s stupid—especially after last time—but he growls and tries to kick up at her anyway. Just out of principle.

She kicks his foot back down to the floor and steps on it.

“I do enjoy a challenge,” she says through his shout, “but let’s not be rude.”

He’s relatively sure at least the smallest couple of toes and the bones on that side of his foot are broken, but worrying about the pain and his thoughts of a way to retort are cut short in his mind by a panicked cry from Lance.

“W-wait, wait don’t—!”

Keith’s breath seizes even before the scream and the sickening sound that comes after—not unlike the sound his foot made, but...louder. Bigger.

And even after four vargas of this, that is the first time Keith has heard Lance beg. Snark and defiance? There was plenty of it to begin with. But not this. And he can’t see what’s happening. He has a terrible idea, but he doesn’t KNOW and—

The awful sound comes again and oh god, Lance is still screaming.

But he loses even the ability to worry about it when the Galran crowding him against the bars shoves the electrified prod straight into his barely healed stomach.

***

Lance isn’t sure what he expected when Smirk Face kicked him onto his back and moved one of his hands to a different anchor in the floor and shortened the chains to nothing.

He knew being trapped on his back hurt, even though the floor was cool. It pulled at the edges of the lashes, and the pressure on so many wounds, even as relatively shallow as they were, was...unpleasant. Lance was just managing to breathe through THAT new sensation when Smirk face hovered back into his field of vision.

And whatever he might have been expecting, it wasn’t the heavy-looking mallet in his his hands. It wasn’t how went to work trying to trap Lance’s ankles under his feet.

What the actual quiznak? He pulls his legs up, trying to keep them free, his chest tightening and his breaths coming shorter as he realizes what his tormentor is trying to do. And if he thinks not talking is going to scare him more…

Well. He’s right.

Lance kicks desperately until he can’t anymore. Until Smirk Face manages to catch both of his legs anyway. He’s weak; it was going to happen, but he panics anyway, shouting wordlessly as Smirk Face makes a show of choosing which leg to bring the mallet down on first.

He chooses, and something in Lance snaps. “W-wait, wait don’t—!”

***

Lance screams like that for nearly the entire session. The entire three quarters of a varga. And there are far too many of those sickening sounds. Keith can catch snatches of all of it when the Galran stops for a moment to gloat.

She has nothing to gloat about; she’s not particularly creative.

Keith can’t see what’s been done to Lance until the next changeover. Until the guards come in and move him back to the center of the room to prep him for the next client. They force him to his knees and snap his cuffs to ports in the floor on either side of him.

He has a few dosboshes to himself, then, until the next session begins.

“Lance…” It comes out breathless; whether it’s from his own exhaustion or the shock when he sees him, he isn’t sure.

That quiznaking alien is still there, just sitting in the corner. Lance is trapped on his back on the floor, the legs of his pants have been pushed up, and his shirt has been long since gone, leaving both his arms and legs exposed. All four limbs are unnaturally limp, turning purple and black in more than one place.

Broken. Or two places practically crushed, maybe, but it’s hard to tell from here.

Lance is just...crying. Trying to breathe. His cuffs are flashing orange--maybe some kind of precursor to the red alarm that went off when he was stabbed. Some kind of indication that his condition isn’t imminently deadly, but still bad.

“Lance…?”

If Lance would just look at him. Keith wants to return the favor from earlier, but he isn’t even sure if Lance can hear him.

The alien stands up, wandering over to the bars between the cells.

“Friend of yours?” he asks.

Keith glares. “He can’t breathe.”

“Oh don’t worry; it’s just pain. I didn’t break any ribs.” He shrugs. “This time.”

“What is wrong with you people?” Keith snarls. “This is fun for you?”

A smirk as the alien crouches down to his eye level for a moment, condescension dripping from his posture. “Obviously. Or why would I be here?”

Keith yanks at the cuffs, his body trying to launch itself in the alien’s direction before he can remember it’s not going to go anywhere right now. His injured foot twinging loudly at him doesn’t help either.

The alien is laughing at him as he gets up to go back to his corner, but at least when he moves away, and Keith looks back to Lance, Lance is looking at him. A corner of his mouth is even quirked up in thanks.

It doesn’t last long, before Lance is distracted by the pain again. Before he groans and his head rolls back.

But at least it was something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and thank you so much for your reviews! It really means a lot to me! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some whump at the beginning, but mostly bonding this time. ;)

Lance gasps and sputters as the water hits him, choking on a bit that goes down his airpipe, and none of that would be so bad if it didn’t make him move. If his body shivering didn’t send sharp shards of pain through his limbs where they’re snapped or shattered.

Smirk Face is hovering over him, devoid of sympathy. “What, you thought passing out would help you?”

His jaw clenches, because he can’t clench anything else. Not even his fists; not with seven or eight broken fingers. He can’t even remember how many it is.

“-t’s not like...I decided to…” Lance growls between gasps. Maybe he should try this more often. Just...being angry. Maybe Keith has the right idea; maybe it would help.

Smirk Face draws back and kicks at one of his legs—more of what he’d been doing when Lance lost consciousness a moment ago—and it’s enough to draw a hoarse shout. But it isn’t like Lance can try to move out of the way anymore. If he moves anything it only hurts worse. The last break wasn’t even really a break. He was crying and crying is usually movement, and movement right now is pain.

Not that there isn’t pain even if he doesn’t move. So. He’s kind of screwed either way.

And Smirk Face knows it. He comes back from the tool rack at the edge of cell carrying a prod like the one probably half of Keith’s clients today have used. Lance knows exactly what it does, but he hasn’t been subjected to it yet. And now…

Fear speeds his breaths, but he won’t beg again. Not to this guy. If he thought it might do any good, maybe, but it won’t. He looked like he enjoyed it the one time Lance something like that slip and he won’t give the alien that satisfaction. Not again.

There are already tears streaming from the corners of his eyes again before the prod even touches him, but if he can help it he’s not going to beg.

Lance manages not to do it. But he loses count of how many times he passes out. He isn’t sure when he loses his voice completely, or when his tears become scarce and most of his sobs go dry. When the bell goes off he cries harder because it’s over, everything dimming around him, but before the guards make it into the cell Smirk Face leans over him and smooths his damp hair back.

“This has been fun; I think I’ll come back.”

He shivers, and Smirk Face is laughing, but Lance doesn’t have the voice to scream.

***

By the time the final tone sounds Keith is swaying where he kneels, weak from blood loss. Most of the cuts are small, but there are so MANY of them…

Moving hurts. Everything stings. He can’t keep his eyes open. He’s pretty sure the client spits down on him as he leaves, but he doesn’t have the energy to be defiant anymore. He can’t do anything. Not for himself, not for Lance…

The last few hours have made that abundantly clear.

He struggles when they come to dump him into the Box. He knows he needs it but he knows it will hurt. In the next cell, a brief, voiceless gagging sound when they pluck Lance from the floor, and then nothing. He must be out, and Keith closes his eyes in thanks.

Maybe Lance will be lucky enough to miss the worst of the Box knitting him back together.

It doesn’t hurt as much this time as last time. It stings worse than being cut in the first place. All at once. Everywhere. But it isn’t a deeper wound. His broken foot healing it worse, but still not as bad as the first time.

When they drag him out the Box is the next cell is still closed. Working. Lance is still inside and there’s no sound yet, thankfully…

He thought too soon. As the guards shove him toward the metal door at the back of the cell, the screaming starts. Lance is awake, his throat healed enough to make sound again.

“Lance!”

It won’t do anything to call for him. He doesn’t know if Lance could hear him inside the device anyway, and even if he could, he wouldn’t hear anything over his own screams now.

But it makes Keith feel like he’s doing something, maybe. “Lance!”

They shove him through the door into the nearly empty back cell, and the door closes. He pounds on it, and he isn’t sure why he does that either, really, except that he wants to be there when Lance comes out, but how is he supposed to tell them that? It won’t matter to them. Lance is screaming and this time he doesn’t have his own pain to distract him and it hurts.

All he can do is pound on the door and wait. Until the screaming stops. Until the door in the next cell opens and Lance stumbles through.

“Lance…”

Keith goes to the bars, but Lance doesn’t seem to hear him. He crashes to his knees just inside the door and doubles over, pressing his head into the floor. He’s out of reach. Shivering as he starts to sob.

“Lance? I-It’s me, it’s Keith. I’m over here…”

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to help.

“Lance?”

How is he supposed to be a leader if he can’t do anything to help?

Keith looks around helplessly. He notices the pallet in Lance’s cell is already against the bars on this side. Which is good. His own is across the cell. He goes to grab it, pulling it across the floor it push it up against the bars beside Lance’s. Because he doesn’t have another plan he sits and beckons.

“Lance…? Come on. Please?”

His sobs have given way to tired sniffles and heavy breaths. After saying his name a few more times, he finally shifts. He crawls to the pallet rather than standing and collapses onto it. He has yet to really look up, much less at Keith, but at least he’s facing the bars when he collapses and curls into himself again—this time on his side.

The angles are difficult through the bars, but Keith manages to pull the thin blanket provided over Lance. Then he shoves the one on his own pallet through the bars and layers it over him, too, because he’s still shaking.

Keith’s foot is healed, but it still aches anyway, as does his stomach, to some degree, and he can’t help grimacing as he realizes he has no way to know how much pain Lance might still be in. Most of Keith’s injuries have been minor, just many. Most of them were easily taken care of by the Box, but Lance…

The shivering might be just as much physical shock as emotional, then.

Keith curses as he reaches back through the bars, trying to get a good angle to rub at Lance’s arms through the blankets, trying to keep him warm even though he can’t really get to him. He tries to remember to keep talking to him, but he isn’t really sure what to say.

“Lance, come on, come back. It’s...I know it’s not okay. None of this is okay. But...please? We’ll get out of this, I just need you to stay with me, come on…”

Finally a hand moves. Finds his and clasps it weakly. Lance draws it in under his chin and just sort of hang onto it for a while, his eyes still clenched shut, but he seems a little more relaxed now and Keith isn’t sure what to do but just. Let him have it. He sits against the bars and waits.

While he waits there carts coming around in a corridor. Water, a small amount of food, and fresh clothes are dropped into each cell. He can’t reach them from where he’s sitting with Lance, and he knows he’s going to need to get Lance responsive enough to make him go get to those—otherwise he’ll share his own if he has to—but one step at a time…

Lance seems to be resting now. Keith is loathe to interrupt him, but if he’s going to do anything he needs his hand back. He could easily just pull it away if he wanted to—Lance’s grip is weak and shaky—but...he won’t do that.

“Lance…Lance?” He tries again for the first time in a while. This time bleary blue eyes flicker open and finally drift up to find his face. “Hey…” Keith tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite come out the way he wanted it to. He can’t see it, but he’s pretty sure it looks like a lopsided horror show.

Fitting. This whole place is a horror show.

“Can I have my hand back?” he jokes quietly.

Something like embarrassment or shame passes through Lance’s eyes as he realizes what he’s clinging to, and releases it. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“It’s okay.”

Lance sits up slowly, wincing as he goes and pulling the blankets around his shoulders, shooting Keith a look when he realizes there are two of them.

“How are you doing?” Keith asks, before Lance can say anything about the blankets.

Lance’s mouth is already open, but it shuts again at that. He makes a face. “I-I don’t know, I...agh, everything just…” His eyes close briefly, and Keith’s chest clenches.

“What…?”

“Hurts,” Lance sighs miserably.

“Sorry...I was afraid of that. The healing devices don’t seem to do that great of a job.”

Lance groans as he tries to flex his hands. “Tell me about it.” His breath hitches when he really focuses on them, down near his lap. “Quiznak, what…?”

“What?” Keith asks again.

“M-my hands,” Lance stammers. Dismay is seeping into his voice.

Keith looks down, but the question ‘what’s wrong with them?’ dies in his throat. Outwardly, the skins looks fine. Normal. Healed. But they’re trembling, and the stiffness in them as Lance tries to open and close them is easy to see even at a glance, and some of the joints are...wrong. Just a little off but clearly painful.

“Ow, ow…!” He’s clearly getting worked up again, his chest starting to heave.

“Don’t force them…”

“Well what else am I supposed to do, Keith!”

The sudden outburst surprises both of them. Except maybe it shouldn’t have. Keith’s first instinct is to draw back. Scowl at something. Well...maybe shout at something instead. At all of this. He feels the upset frustration that is clearly getting to Lance, but he can’t do that now. Lance is staring at him, wide-eyed and...scared.

His own eyebrows are probably somewhere up under his hairline, but he has to do something more than stare back. But Lance bites back a dry sob and starts rambling before he can figure out what.

“A-Allura can’t fix this. Going into that box made it like its...l-like it’s old. She can’t fix old injuries just like the healing pods couldn’t! What am I supposed to do? Wh—”

“Lance…”

“Are th-they just gonna stay like this?” He rubs at his arms, grimacing. “What about everything else? It hurts. They just...the breaks didn’t heal right. None of them did. They _hurt_ ,” Lance sobs.

He’s shivering all over again. Keith reaches through the bars to take his shoulders and tug him closer. “Lance, calm down, okay?”

“I...I…”

“I need you to calm down.” Is this the right to do? Will this help at all? He doesn’t know, but it’s all he’s got. “Deep breaths?”

It probably shouldn’t sound like a question, but anyway.

Lance seems to be trying to listen, anyway. He pulls in gulps of air and pushes them out again unevenly. “W-what if it always hurts?” he groans quietly.

“We don’t know that any of this is permanent.”

“But Allura can’t—”

“Not exactly, but…” Lance isn’t wrong. About any of it. Not really. Keith’s stomach cramps for an entirely different reason as he tries to really process that, but he also refuses to believe they’re already beaten.

“But what?” Lance questions. His voice is tight as he slumps against the bars.

Keith lets his hands slide from Lance’s shoulders, and takes one of his hands instead, turning it over to really look at it. “Allura may not be able to fix old injuries, but people have been re-breaking bones that healed wrong to force them to heal correctly for centuries,” he says slowly. He tries to convince himself he’s right.

He wants to be right. He has to be right.

“And with Allura doing the healing after doing something like that, she could probably fix a lot of this pretty close to good as new. Maybe not all of it but...a lot of it. Probably.”

Lance makes a face. “Gee, that sounds fun.”

Keith sighs and releases his hand. “Look...I can’t tell you everything’s gonna be fine. I don’t know that. But you know Allura, and the rest of our team; they’ll do everything they can.”

“Yeah…”

He only sounds half convinced, but there isn’t much else Keith can do at this point. “Hey...can you get up? There’s food and water over by the door.”

“I’m not hungry…”

“You need the water. Come on, get up.”

Lance glares at him briefly, but he gets up. Slowly. Breathing hard and making pained sounds as he goes, using the bars to brace himself. When he’s up he’s favoring one leg more than the other. He looks at Keith, who’s standing with him, and he’s getting that look in his eyes again. Fear. Quiet panic.

“Don’t think about it right now,” Keith says gently.

Lance shuts his eyes. Takes deep breaths to steady himself before he starts limping along the bars to the front of the cell. At least he’s listening now.

Keith changes into the cleaner clothes waiting for him at his own door, and brings the food bars and water back to the pallet by the bars. Lance is slower coming back, but he meets him there.

“At least it’s not food goo,” Keith says, raising an eyebrow at one of the stale food bars as he chews. Lance laughs once, dryly. He hasn’t touched the food yet. “Eat, Lance.”

“You’re really bossy, you know that?”

But he eats. Around them the other prisoners are finishing their own meals and pushing the wrappers and empty cups and discarded clothes back to the front of their cells before they settle down to sleep. There are other quiet conversations. Some not so quiet. Some just keep to themselves.

After a while Lance leans closer to the bars and whispers. “Keith...look. I..I-I’m not going anywhere very fast anymore. If you can find a way out of here you can come b—”

“No.”

Lance blinks. “What?”

He’s not leaving Lance alone in a place like this. Even if he thought there was a way out. Not that he’s seen anything promising.

“Our job now is to stay alive until the others find us,” he whispers back. “So shut up.”

Lance just stares at him for a moment. Something passes across his face, like he understands the rest that Keith didn’t say. HIs mouth opens like he’s going to say something about it.

“I said shut up,” Keith says again. He sets aside the empty food wrappers. “Give me your hand.”

“...what?”

“Your hand.”

“...which one?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Lance tentatively sticks one through the bars. Keith takes it between his like before, but instead of just looks at it he begins to carefully massage the tight muscles that are reacting to the pain of the badly healed bones and joints. Lance hisses and whimpers, but he doesn’t pull away.

“What are you doing?”

“No expert here, but if we can keep your muscles loose that has to help something, right?”

“I guess…”

He could be wrong. He isn’t sure. This isn’t the same as...

But it’s all Keith can think to do, and he has to do _something_.

Lance stays tense against the bars at first. When his hand finally starts to relax so does he. “Huh,” he says quietly.

“Is that better?”

“Yeah...doesn’t hurt as much anymore.”

“Then we’ll do the other one too.”

Lance swallows. “Thanks.”

Keith just shrugs, and keeps working at the hand he has in his for a while longer. When he lets it go Lance takes the opportunity to pull one of the blankets up around his shoulders again. He shoves the other one through the bars. Keith tries to get him to keep it but Lance just glares.

“Fine, fine…” He takes it back and wraps it around his own shoulders.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Lance asks, as Keith takes his other hand. It’s still stiff and tight to begin with, and he grimaces.

“Told you; I’m not an expert.”

Lance just raises an eyebrow at him, clearly not buying it, but Keith doesn’t say anything. He focuses on the tense muscles. On smoothing out the knots of Lance’s right hand.

The same hand he used to help Shiro with sometimes. After Adam left. After Shiro determined he was going on the Kerberos mission anyway.

_Give me your hand._

_You don’t have to—_

_You can’t keep that stupid electro-stimulator on all the time. You’ve been pacing around your office trying to get this same knot out all afternoon; let me help._

_It’s fine. Usually I can...sometimes it just...most of the time I don’t need help. A-Adam would—_

_You don’t have to explain._

“Keith?”

He shrugs. “I used to help someone,” he offers vaguely. “You should lie down; as soon as I’m done we should try to get as much sleep as we can.”

Lance makes a face. “Stay alive, right?”

“Stay alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y9ou so much for reading! I can't wait to hear what you think! I appreciate the comments so much; they give me life! <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is shortish as there has been some life stuff going on and I'm kind of exhausted tbh, but have some whump and a bit more bonding, too! Things are about to get more interesting...oops.

_One varga at a time. One varga at a time…_

How many doboshes until this session ends? It can’t be long now, can it?

He tries to shift against the bars at his back, but with his feet bound by the short bar between them and the bar fastened tightly to the top of the heavy block they’re propped up on, he doesn’t have much leeway. The bones in his bottom are sore and cold from the hard floor.

Lance yelps as another blow to his feet stings the open lashes crossing the bottoms of them, and send shocks of pain up his aching legs. The right one seems to have healed worse last night than the other; every blow feels like someone stabbing him in the shin.

It doesn’t help either, just knowing Smirk Face could have used something like these extra restraints yesterday, and he didn’t. He wanted Lance to try to struggle. It makes him sick just thinking about it.

This client has something about feet, and it isn’t the first strange encounter today…’strange’ he thinks, because it’s an easier word than ‘horrifying.’ Breathing...hurts. His throat is still wrapped in bruises from the first session this shift, and sharper pain from cracked ribs from the second client stabs his chest if he breathes too deep. He tries not to, but sometimes he can’t help gasping and all it does is hurt.

Another blow, stinging and aching and stabbing, and his own sharp grunt mingles with Keith’s cries from the next cell. In this position Lance has seen all of it this time - the beatings Keith has taken. He isn’t even tied to anything this go-round; his cuffs are linked to each other behind his back, but by now he’s curled on the floor as his current client kicks at him, and he doesn’t seem to have the energy to move or fight back much anymore.

He tried. At the beginning. Even though he told Lance last night that they should probably not do that. Not anymore, anyway.

 _What I did earlier was stupid,_ he said, one arm subconsciously wrapping around his stomach. _We...if the goal is to stay alive we shouldn’t provoke them._

Lance hasn’t. He’s tried not to. But sometimes it’s easier just to glare, and if that’s provoking...maybe he has. A little.

Keith shouts, and Lance can’t see exactly what happened. The client is in the way. Maybe it’s nothing more than everything else that’s been happening but Lance is tired, and his heart jumps into his throat anyway. He’s distracted when the next blow lands, sharper than the last.

In the shockwave up his leg from the blow it feels like something cracks, and Lance screams.

***

_Six Vargas Ago_

Lance wakes in a cold sweat, words echoing in his mind from a nightmare he’s trying to shake off. The shiver-inducing memory of Smirk Face’s voice near his ear. _This has been fun; I think I’ll come back_.

The cells are dark and cold. On the other side of the bars between them Keith’s breathing is deep and even in sleep, but Lance feels as if he can’t get any air at all.

 _I think I’ll come back_.

His aching fingers convulse where they grip the thin blanket against his chest. He turns over, away from the bars, trying to keep from waking Keith as he curls in on himself and struggles to breathe.

“Lance…?” A faint voice cuts into his consciousness, and he doesn’t know how long it’s been.

Quiznak.

“Lance…”

When he turns back over, slowly, Keith’s is looking at him, propped up on an elbow and dark eyes questioning.

“I…” Lance has to clear his throat before he can continue. “H-he said he’d come back.”

At that, Keith’s face cycles through a number of other expressions before it settles again. Shock. Fear. Anger. His jaw tightens as he swallows.

“It...it probably wouldn't be this next time...I don’t think the night shift is much longer than the day shift. They’re not really days, just...I think it’s six vargas on and six off, or something close to that. Other cells blocks are open when ours is closed. Some kind of rotation…” He trails off, seeming to realize when he’s resorted to over-explaining and shaking his head at himself.

Lance wishes he could be amused by it, but Keith talking too much is so rare it feels like it can only be bad. And of course it is. This whole thing is...is...

“So…” Keith continues. “It’d be a couple of shifts before it would be another day for him, probably. The others could find us before that.”

Lance shivers. “I hope so.”

Keith lists forward on his elbow, toward the bars and closer to Lance, like he’s trying to figure out if there’s anything else can do. Or should do. “Try to get some more sleep…” he trails.

He takes a quick breath. “I don’t know if I...Keith…” He feels frozen. Everything hurts, but that isn’t really the problem.

A hand reaches through the bars, finally, and wraps gently around his wrist since his stiff fingers are twisted in the blanket. Keith doesn’t say anything; he’s listening.

Lance clenches his eyes shut, because he doesn’t know if he can say what he’s trying to say otherwise. Keith’s thumb starts moving in hesitant circles on his wrist, so he focuses on that. It helps him calm enough to form the words, slowing his pounding heart.

“I...even if it’s not him...i-it took EVERYTHING I had to just...get through that. How’m I...s-s-supposed to do it ag…” His breath hitches as he starts to tremble. “-again…s-six whole vargas...I can’t...”

“One varga at a time,” Keith says quietly. “One _dobosh_ at a time, if you have to. Whatever you have to do.”

Lance has to swallow several times before he can speak again. “What if he does come back? Before they find us…”

Keith’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times before he answers. When he does it’s quiet, but firm. “I’ll be here.”

***

_Now_

Lance is gasping, still trying to figure out if his leg is actually broken again when the bell goes off. The client in his cell snorts in disappointment as she leaves.

He waits with dread, not knowing where he’ll be moved next, but the guards don’t come. Apparently whoever is up next wants him right here.

It’s disappointing, really. His back is aching by now, too; he was hoping for a different position, and he winces at the pang in his stomach he feels when he realizes how alarmingly fast such small things have come to matter.

In the next cell, the guards pick a groaning Keith up from the floor and drag him to the bars between their cells. They snap his cuffs to the bars, leaving him on his knees facing them. Facing Lance. When the guards are gone, they can actually see each other easily. It’s the first rest period that’s really happened.

Keith tries to rest back on his feet, but it looks like something is stopping him - like his cuffs are attached to the bars too high. He can’t go all the way down without hanging from his wrists and straining them. He glances up at the cuffs in frustration, mutters something that sounds like ‘of course.’

“Keith?” Lance’s fists clench where they hang. It had to have been on purpose.

Keith bites off a groan as he goes up on his knees again, with some difficulty, to rest leaning into the bars instead. “Yeah?” he clips out.

“Nothing...just…” He wanted to hear his voice. Lance lets out a breath and tries to shift again, to do something to relieve his back, but it only jostles his leg and everything else. He can’t tell how bad the leg is but...something isn’t right. Great.

“Lance? Hey, Lance? Are you…?”

“I’m okay,” he answers, without thinking. He’s out of breath again. Was he making those pained sounds out loud when he moved?

He must have been. Keith is looking at him like he did, raising an eyebrow at the ‘okay’ bit but also pulling a pretty spectacularly worried face.

“Just...a varga at a time, right?” Lance sighs.

How can this shift only be half over?

“Hang in there,” Keith says quietly.

Lance glances pointedly at Keith’s arms and general predicament. “You seem to have that one covered a little better right now.” His voice is raspy, but he thinks he still nailed the delivery.

He gets a mildly amused smirk in return. There isn’t much else to be said, or done, and the silence for the last few minutes of the rest period is companionable. Somehow easier to take than the other breaks. The echoes of lingering pain through the rest of the cell block are easier to tune out.

Not that he doesn’t feel some guilt for tuning it out...but he has to. If he listens to all of it all of the time, it’s too much. It’s easier to focus on his own breaths, and Keith’s. To focus on the fact they’re both here and alive. Breathing may hurt right now, but he’s still alive.

Lance closes his eyes to wait for the bell--to try to shut out the pain, just for a moment, until it starts all over. He tenses at the long tone, and the rattling at the cell door. He tries to keep himself from breathing harder as he opens his eyes again, tries to force the fear away, but though he’s tried every session, he has yet to succeed.

But he’s made it. One varga at a time. He’s afraid, but he’s still here. He’s still him...

“Good morning, boys!”

If he was cold before, his veins turn to solid ice at the familiar voice. It’s like the tentative mental ground Lance thought he was standing on drops out from under him, and everything spins wildly as he falls.

Smirk Face.

***

 _No._ No no no, that bastard CANNOT be here again already.

“Well, it’s early for me; you two’ve been up a while, I’m guessing.”

Keith draws himself up as far as he can. Not that he expects himself to seem intimidating right now, but he has to do _something_.

_What if he does come back? Before they find us…_

_I’ll be here._

Lance is pressing himself back into the bars, eyes wild and already short of breath as he yanks uselessly at his restraints. He looks away as the alien crouches beside him, face working as he tries to school it back into anger or passivity and fails on either count.

“Missed me?”

“Not...really,” Lance seethes. His breath hitches as the alien pushes his shirt up to examine the bruises covering his chest. There are strangled cries when unforgiving fingers press into them over what has to be cracked ribs.

“Stop it!” Keith shouts before he has the time to wonder why he can - or why he thinks it will do any good.

The alien smirks over his shoulder. “Patience! I’ll get to you.”

Get to…?

Keith blinks in confusion at the same moment Lance catches his eyes. They seem to have the same thought at the same moment. Lance glances over his shoulder and Keith looks back as far as he can, hoping he’s wrong, but he isn’t.

There isn’t a new client in Keith’s cell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning that this chapter is pretty rough as far as content, I guess? Ooof. Still h/c at the end though. And I'm sorry for the long wait! I hope you enjoy the chapter, and I can't wait to hear what you think! Thank you!

Lance can feel himself trembling—the sharp pricks of pain in his chest and leg are a good indication he’s not imagining it—but when Keith’s eyes go wide with the realization they both have of what Smirk Face means...that’s he’s here for both of them this time...no. Heck no.

Lance draws himself up anyway, even if it won’t do any good, and makes himself meet the alien’s smug gaze. “You’re not touching him.”

“I’m not, am I?” A deep jab into the worst of the pain in his side, a thumb pressing in and holding and the pain is so electric his body won’t let him breathe. A keening whine grows and he can’t stop it, and he can’t get the air back once it’s gone.

“Lance! Stop!” Keith, pulling on the restraints keeping him against the bars.

It doesn’t stop. Not until something gives way in his chest. A weak or cracked rib snapping entirely, new pain and it _hurts_ , he hears his own strangled scream, fading out when he finally runs out of air entirely, but he still can’t _breathe_. The hand half the size of his chest draws away, no pressure anymore, but it still hurts, and there still isn’t any air.

Everything fades away almost to nothing before his body responds to his desperate attempts to breathe. A stuttering draw of air and Lance can open his eyes again, finally. His vision is fuzzy and faint around the edges and fades out for a moment whenever he breathes, even shallowly, but at least he can again.

His face is damp. Maybe he should have expected that. Fresh tears when large fingers prod further at his chest, poking at the other bruises and tender places and pressing around the edges of the break that was just forced.

Maybe that’s just this guy’s thing.

Keith is still fussing at the guy. “Leave him alone! If you’re here for me too then get over here!”

No no no...Lance chokes around the hard lump in his throat trying to make his voice work again. “Keith! Sh...shut UP!”

What if Smirk Face listens? What if he answers the taunts by actually going over there? If he’s really purchased both of their sessions...the longer Lance can keep him occupied here, the better. He can spare Keith some pain for a while.

It’s funny how the sudden urge to protect his friend pushes the largest of the fear away. It’s not gone but...it helps. It doesn’t stop the shiver down his spine when Smirks Face leans in to whisper near his ear, but it helps him feel a little less cold with dread.

“You think you can keep me from doing what I want? That’s not how this works.”

Maybe not. But he’ll try. _If the goal is to stay alive we shouldn’t provoke them,_ Keith said. But if he can ignore that AGAIN, so can Lance.

He’s pretty sure Keith is over there shaking his head or something. Trying to get his attention. But he focuses on Smirk Face anyway.

“Don’t touch him,” he says again, with as much of a growl as he can muster.

Smirk Face gives him the kind of smirk that made Lance name him that in his head in the first place. “You don’t have much say in the matter, but I like the new display of backbone.”

Lance snorts, the ‘why’ unspoken, but the alien seems to hear it anyway.

“Your species is fascinating,” he says, speaking up now, surely loud enough for Keith to hear, too. He prods at Lance’s chest again, right over the break, and Lance can’t help but bite off a groan that insists on playing itself out in the back of his throat anyway. “Small and fragile, yet strangely resilient. To say nothing of your personalities.”

“What about...em?” Lance gasps.

“You clearly care about each other. That’s rare here. Most figure out quickly enough that caring doesn’t do well for them in this place.” A low chuckle. “Thought I should take advantage of it before it changes.”

Keith manages to catch his gaze again finally, but really only because Lance let him. Because he wants Keith to hear his retort to that. “It...it won’t…”

An amused huff. “We’ll see.”

Hands probes at the rest of him, and Lance tries not to betray the spark of pain when Smirk Face finds the re-break in his leg. He tries, but maybe the alien can feel it. Maybe it’s worse than he thought. Smirk Face pokes at it until he cries out anyway.

“Hmm...decent amount to work with already.”

“The heck is...that s’posed to mean?”

Rather than answer, Smirk Face pulls a few strips of some sort of stiff, wired material from a pouch at his belt. Small lights wink along them, making it clear they’re embedded with technology. The strips have fastenings that he uses to wrap one around Lance’s leg where the pain is centered.

“Wh...what…?”

He should know better than to ask. Smirk Face won’t answer if he doesn’t want to. Yesterday he didn’t say much at all, and it seems he’s reached his limit for now. He doesn’t say a word as he releases Lance’s left arm from above his head to lower it and stretch it out beside him against the bars. The cuff reattaches to another bar with a snap, hold it out, and Smirk Face uses another of the wired strips to tie his elbow in place against another.

His breaths are already coming shallow, just because it’s less painful that way, but he can’t tell himself some of it isn’t from the fear curling in his gut as he tries to figure out what the alien is doing.

It feels almost like some sort of out of body experience when part of his mind accepts that moving his arm can’t be a good sign. That feeling at his forearm can’t be good, and neither can drawing back a hand and flattening it out like that to come in with the side of it.

Keith shouts something again, panicked, but Lance doesn’t catch it.

Smirk Face pulls the blow so perfectly, at just the right moment, that Lance almost isn’t sure it actually did anything until the pain hits. In the split second that follows the blow, before it does, faintly a part of his mind understands what happened--if there had been follow-through to that blow his arm would probably be in two pieces now, and the people who run this place probably frown on people dismembering their products. Instead the bone is just broken. Again.

The rest of his mind is caught up with the side of him that tries to scream when the pain comes, abrupt and excruciating.

Everything just goes dark instead.

***

Lance is an idiot. A sometimes annoyingly-selfless one, maybe, but an idiot.

But what’s happening to him isn’t his fault...and he’s no more an idiot than Keith is himself, probably, anyway.

When Lance passes out Keith goes silent, not wanting to accidentally wake him up again himself. He lets his head rest against the bars and hopes Lance will be left to rest, too, even if just for a moment. Anything.

He’s so tired...leaning forward into the bars helps, but not being able to rest back, when his body is so exhausted and bruised and aching...it isn’t enough. Not by a longshot.

For a moment, though, he somehow manages to drift off. Almost. In the relative quiet as Smirk Face reaches to fish something else from the pouch he wears. (Lance told him last night what he’d been calling the alien. It fit.)

A startled cry from Lance, and Keith’s eyes snap open again. Smirk Face has something like a remote--similar to the ones used for their cuffs--and it seems to be activating something in the strips wrapped around Lance’s leg and elbow. A faint buzzing and crackling, and he isn’t sure whether they’re producing a current, or vibrating, or both.

Both, he thinks. And neither is good. Not where they’re clasped. Not wrapped around or near broken bones like that, quiznak…

“Hey!” Keith cries.

Lance is awake, but his eyes are already starting to roll back again. Whatever’s being done is enough he’s scarcely even made a sound since that first cry as he woke. His mouth is open in a silent scream that sends a shiver down Keith’s spine from here.

Smirk Face only turns the things off just in time to keep his victim from passing out again. Lance is left shivering and struggling to breathe.

“Lance…?!”

It just...it’s almost the same as what the alien did to him yesterday, but somehow worse. It’s worse. The tear tracks on his face and the way he won’t look this way now tell Keith it’s worse.

But instead of doing it again, Smirk Face gets up.

Keith should have expected, by now, for him to come this way--he wants it, even; wants him to leave Lance alone--but something in him still trembles when the alien buzzes himself out of the next cell and comes to his.

Lance is already protesting. “Don’t…” He doesn’t seem to have much energy for it, but he’s trying.

“Lance, shut up,” Keith says quickly, echoing him from earlier.

Smirk Face comes at him with another of those strips from his pouch, fastening it around his neck. This one looks thicker, but he doesn’t know what that means. He can feel the wiring on the inside, and something cool and smooth rests against his throat.

“I think we’re going to have fun,” Smirk Face laughs.

“Have all the fun you want,” Keith retorts. “Just—” Just stay over here, he meant to say. Or he would...something.

But he stops because Lance is crying out again, just for a moment as the devices around his limbs activate and then go silent again.

“What are you doing!”

It happens again, Lance groaning and going stiff in agony for several ticks, but Smirk Face doesn’t have the remote out. The alien shrugs.

“I’m not doing anything.” He pushes into Keith’s space, jabbing a finger at the collar around Keith’s neck. “And I’d try to keep it down from now on, if I were you; for every tick your vocal chords are active, his receivers activate for several.”

Keith stares at him for several ticks in horror, trying to compute that.

“I think you get it.” Smirks Face nods. “Good. Not that ‘I’ mind if you make noise, of course; more fun for me. But I don’t think you’ll want to.”

No…

Quiznak.

Of all the…

A litany of curses roll through Keith’s mind, pushing at his tongue, but all he can allow is for his breath to speed up into a seething harshness as he tries to launch himself sideways at the laughing alien.

All he succeeds in doing is wrenching his shoulder, and Smirk Face backs off, still chuckling, to choose from the tools racks on the other side of the cell.

“Keith…”

Lance’s voice is faint, and he doesn’t want to look up, at first.

“K-Keith...don’t worry about it...oh..okay? Don’t.”

He meets Lance’s gaze wishing he could answer. Because he will worry about it. He doesn’t want to hurt him.

But whatever Smirk Face does...Keith knows enough to know he can’t avoid it forever.

Eventually he will fail. And even if part of him knows it isn’t, he will still feel that it’s his fault.

“It’s okay,” Lance says, still trying to reassure him even though he looks as terrified as Keith feels. “Wh-whatever happens, it’s...it’s okay.”

Keith wants it to be true, but it isn’t. Not to him. How could it be okay?

Movement over his shoulder, and when he glances back Smirk Face is kneeling beside him with a handful of things that look like long, thin bars of metal, sharp on the ends and no bigger around than his smallest finger, maybe, if even that, but...barbed. Most of the length of the shaft.

The alien shoves one of them close to his face. “Like these? Ingenious design, really.”

The barbs are no longer than a millimeter or two, maybe, but they’re angled. Smirk Face presses down on a button toward the end of the shaft, and they pop out another couple of millimeters, only while his finger holds the button, and they retract again.

Designed to cause pain with minimal damage. With the Boxes here to heal victims, there probably wouldn’t even be any permanent damage. The affected area would be so much smaller than, say, the knife wounds the box couldn’t quite handle yesterday.

All of this hits Keith with the force of a blow to the stomach in the moment Smirk Face is making him look at one of the things. It runs through his minds’ analysis center two or three times over, and he can’t breathe because he knows he’s going to fail.

Smirk Face knew exactly what he was doing, having the guards leave him in the position he’s in. His body is already tired, his muscles weak...they’ll start shaking soon, the muscles in his torso will be flexing more than usual, struggling to find a comfortable position when he can't rest back, his arms and legs will be doing the same, and anywhere those metal shafts go through him, it will only hurt more.

He’s going to fail.

His chest is already heaving. When did that start?

“Keith!”

Lance’s voice is still weak, but it’s louder than it was. Or it would be if it didn’t sound like it was coming through water—through the roaring in his ears.

“Keith...it’s okay. D-don’t worry about...about me, okay? Do wh..whatever you have to do.”

Lance is trying to search his face, but Keith isn’t paying attention anymore. He can see Lance, he knows what Lance is saying, what Lance is doing, but he’s looking straight through him. Everything is blurring out.

Smirk Face starts from the front, and of course he does, so Lance can see what he’s doing. Sharp pain lances through the flesh of his stomach as one end of one of the metal rods is pressed slowly in, but at first it isn’t as bad as he feared. Keith screws his jaw shut, breathes through his teeth, and quiznak, that thing is halfway through him now, isn’t it? But it’s okay, he can do this, he has to…

But the first time Smirk Face tugs backwards on the rod, not trying to pull it out but just tugging enough to send the tiny barbs tearing at his insides...

Any hope dissolves.

***

“Keith…?”

Is this how Keith felt last time? Lance wonders. When he wasn’t responding?

Smirk Face spent most of what was left of the shift—most of the remaining two and a half sessions—with Keith. It’s over now, both of them healed as well as they’re going to be and back in the rear cells.

Keith walked into his under his own power, but he collapsed on the pallet, curled and facing the other way, and hasn’t said a word in several dobashes.

Is this how Keith felt? Helpless? Shaky? Wishing he could break down himself but not wanting to because someone else clearly needs him right now?

...wondering if he can even do anything?

Lance shifts where’s he’s leaned against the bars for support, to take pressure off his aching limbs. Everything hurts, really, his chest now included, but the arm and leg that were broken a second time are clawing at his nerves worse than anything else. His damaged hands are clumsy to keep the arm cradled against his chest, but at least THEY aren’t any worse off than they were before. No one paid them any mind this shift.

“Keith, come on...please…it wasn’t your fault.”

Moving hurts, but he determines to try. Last time Keith covered him up, and the warmth...maybe it helped. He isn’t sure. It’s so fuzzy to remember. But maybe he should try that.

It works, but not the way he expected it to. When he reaches through the bars to tug at Keith’s blanket, his hands are blindly batted away and he gets a strained, garbled protest of “don’t” but at least it’s something.

“Keith?”

All he gets in response is a dry-sounding sob.

“Keith…”

“I’m sorry…”

Lance swallows. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says again. “N-none of it was; I know that.”

Heavy breaths from Keith, his chest clearly heaving even though he’s still turned away, his arms wrapped around himself. “I-I should have b...done better…”

His voice sounds so hollow Lance aches for him.

“Stop it.” He tries to get a good grip on one of Keith’s arms, tries to tug on him to get him to turn over without necessarily forcing him; not that he’d really have the strength for that anyway right now, and certainly not through these bars.

“Stop, okay? I can’t listen to you do that to yourself. You did what you had to do. We agreed that’s what we have to do. We have to stay alive. And...and sane. You did what you had to do.”

Some of the tension goes out of Keith’s shoulders, but he still won’t turn over. “I knew I...knew I’d do it. Eventually. I just…”

Lance shivers and pulls his hand back to himself to hold his other arm against his chest more closely, rubbing to try to keep the circulation up and to help, even if only a tiny bit, with the pain. “Yeah,” he answers, quiet.

Watching Keith hyperventilate and seethe through his teeth for the better part of a varga or two trying to keep himself from shouting was almost worse than what it eventually became. When he was too exhausted and hurting to control himself anymore and things become patchy for Lance between bouts of white-hot pain and unconsciousness.

Their rations are delivered, but Lance ignores them for now, hoping Keith will respond further.

“I told you not to worry about it and I meant it.” Maybe he sounds a little desperate, but he doesn’t know what he can do about that right now.

“I know…”

Lance blinks. Well. It sounded strained, but that’s better, at least. He rests, waiting for more.

“How’s your arm?”

The question is so quiet Lance almost misses it. He doesn’t realize until then that his eyes have drifted shut, and when he blinks them open Keith is facing him. Still lying down and curled around his middle, still not exactly looking at him, but at least he's turned this way now.

Lance glances down at the arm held against his chest and winces. “It...could be better.”

A quiet snort.

“What about you?” The way Keith’s arms are clutched around his stomach and one of his shoulders—the places Smirk Face shoved most of those rods—he wonders if any of it still hurts.

Keith just makes a face, his fingers twitching in the thin, rough fabric of his shirt.

So those didn’t heal the greatest either, then. Figures.

“You should eat,” Keith mumbles.

“So should you,” Lance counters. He hopes the message is clear: _get up and stop blaming yourself and get to your food too, or I’m not touching mine_.

And he doesn’t move. Not until Keith huffs out a breath and pulls himself up by the bars to lean against them too. He grunts and groans doing it, confirming Lance’s suspicions that he’s still hurting. It’s not a guess he’s happy to have been right in.

“Okay,” Keith groans finally. “Fine...food. Let’s do that.”

“Just a minute.”

“What?”

Lance only has to shift a bit to be able to get his arms through the bars approximately around Keith, since they’re leaning into the divider approximately opposite each other. It’s still difficult, but it sort of works. He can’t take the pain away...and he’s been decent at talking Keith out of rough spots before but he’s just...too exhausted right now.

This is all he has, but if it is he’s going to do it.

The shoulders he has his arms around freeze in confusion, and Keith coughs trying to question him. “Wh...what are you doing?”

Lance huffs. “I’m trying to hug you, and it’s turning out even more awkward than I was afraid of; just go with it, would you?”

A weak chuckle. “I...o-okay…”

That’s all Lance expects, and that would be fine. Keith relaxes against the bars, some of his tight muscles easing in the clumsy embrace, his breath evening out, and that would have been enough for Lance. But it helps his own inward shivering when Keith’s arms thread through the bars to return it.

“Hey...you said you’d be here,” Lance says after a moment. “A-nd...that’s how I made it. Okay? So I’m...I’m here too.”

A quiet voice, muffled near his shoulder. “Thank you...”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know if you'd like to read more; I know this is rather intense. I'm blaming Whumptober and my need for platonic Keith and Lance bonding hahaha.


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